09 Aug Cry or Sing?

Below is a piece I wrote in July of 2014 when God was stretching me past my breaking point. As this week of unexpected stretching and breaking nears an end, it is nice to be reminded that these broken bones can still sing.

“…let the bones that you have broken rejoice.”   Psalm 51:8

Tears fall from the pain, shame, and anguish of life.

How long have they fallen?

Since the day I was born?

Long enough to flood this valley I have lived in.

Exhausted, the tears slow and I wipe the salty, dirt-filled mixture from my face.

I look up and wait.

Waiting for what, I do not know.

I sit.

In this valley of dry bones.

Wondering, can you too breathe life into me?

All the pieces of my skeletal life lay strewn before me.

Memories of moments, mistakes, and miseries that broke me,

Undid me,

Catapulted the insides of my outsides across this valley floor.

I stare,

At me,

EVERYWHERE.

My heart longs to be put together again.

A picture of Frankenstein flashes through my exhausted mind and I wonder,

If pieced together would I resemble a monster

similar to the creature of comfort that I was before?

Would the scars mar any chance of beauty to be found in me?

Then I remember,

You bring beauty out of ashes.

Will you make these bones beautiful?

More than that,

Can you give them LIFE?

Can you give them BREATH?

Can you give them a song they can SING?

Can the bones that you have broken again REJOICE?

I dare to HOPE.

I dare to BELIEVE.

Broken, but rejoicing,

I sing.